European lawmakers have voted to make it easier to send rejected asylum-seekers to detention sites in third countries, echoing tough U.S. deportation tactics that some far-right parties praise. On Thursday, lawmakers backed “return hubs” outside the EU. Some governments have talked with countries, mainly in Africa, about hosting them.
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Springsteen headlines Minnesota demonstrationTiger Woods is facing an uncertain future off the golf course after his DUI arrest in FloridaRaccoon goes on drunken rampage in Virginia liquor store and passes out on bathroom floorWorries about flying seem to be taking off. Here's how to cope with in-flight anxietyAt Middle Creek, timing and distance shape a photo of migrating geeseThe World in PicturesUganda reintroduces rhinos into a protected area where they have been extinct since 1983Dietary supplement makers push the FDA to allow peptides and other new ingredients'Worst in Show' CES products include AI refrigerators, AI companions and AI doorbellsAt Pentagon Christian service, Hegseth prays for violence 'against those who deserve no mercy'Trump interrumpe reunión del gabinete sobre Irán y el aumento de precios para hablar de plumones Springsteen headlines Minnesota demonstrationTiger Woods is facing an uncertain future off the golf course after his DUI arrest in FloridaRaccoon goes on drunken rampage in Virginia liquor store and passes out on bathroom floorWorries about flying seem to be taking off. Here's how to cope with in-flight anxietyAt Middle Creek, timing and distance shape a photo of migrating geeseThe World in PicturesUganda reintroduces rhinos into a protected area where they have been extinct since 1983Dietary supplement makers push the FDA to allow peptides and other new ingredients'Worst in Show' CES products include AI refrigerators, AI companions and AI doorbellsAt Pentagon Christian service, Hegseth prays for violence 'against those who deserve no mercy'Trump interrumpe reunión del gabinete sobre Irán y el aumento de precios para hablar de plumonesMigrants trying to reach Britain, walk on a beach shore in Gravelines, northern France, Wednesday, March 18, 2026. ″ in third countries in Africa and elsewhere, quietly adopting tactics of the Trump administration that have drawn public criticism across the 27-nation bloc. The EU continues to tighten migration policies after right-wing parties took power in some countries in 2024. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People’s Party coalition, has said the new measures will prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis caused by Syria’s civil war, when about 1 million people arrived to seek asylum. “We have learnt the lessons of the past. And today, we are better equipped,” von der Leyen has said. Theof U.S. President Donald Trump and called for the EU to adopt a similar approach. Human rights groups warn that authorities are already illegally pushing back migrants at EU borders and hollowing out their legal protections.What’s envisioned now is an expansion of what Italy has created under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her “tough on migration” stance. It operates two migrant detention centers for rejected asylum-seekers in Albania. One currently holds at least 90 migrants, said lawmaker Rachele Scarpa, who said she found people confused and scared during a recent visit. In addition, Meloni’s Cabinet has approved an anti-immigration package that would allow the navy to halt vessels in international waters for up to six months if they are deemed a threat to public order; return intercepted migrants to countries of origin or third countries; and speed up the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes. An “informal group” of EU nations including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece are pursuing deportation center agreements, said Bernd Parusel, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies. Kenya is one country they are speaking with, said a Dutch member of the European Parliament, Tineke Strik. Whether consciously or not, the plan is similar toover the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the U.S. delegation. But others in Europe have praised ICE’s actions and called for setting up deportation-focused police units. The EU border service Frontex began sending officers along on raids with Belgium’s police in 2024 to detain and deport migrants. It is not clear whether it is doing this in other countries. The European Commission has declined requests to take a position on U.S. federal immigration policies. In Britain, which left the EU several years ago, the center-left Labour Party government has made curbing unauthorized immigration a key focus. The Home Office in February said almost 60,000 people had been deported since the government was elected in July 2024. It said 9,000 arrests were made of people working without permission in 2025, up by more than half from the year before.Under the principle of non-refoulement in EU and international law, a person cannot be returned to a country where they would face persecution. But European immigration enforcement tactics include so-called pushbacks, where people trying to cross into the EU are forced back across a border without access to asylum procedures. Authorities in Europe carry out an average of 221 pushbacks a day, according to a February report by a group of humanitarian organizations. More than 80,000 pushbacks were recorded in 2025, the report said, mostly in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia. “Men, women and children — including individuals in critical medical condition — are routinely subjected to beatings, attacks by police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings and theft of personal belongings,” according to the report. European agents are brutalizing migrants just like in the U.S., said Flor Didden, migration policy expert at the Belgian human rights group 11.11.11. Some, like in Greece, even wear masks. “The images are shocking and the outrage is justified,” he said of the U.S. “But where is that same moral clarity when European border authorities abuse, rob and let people die?”The groups also have recorded an expansion of surveillance technology like drones, thermal cameras and satellites to monitor people on the move.The EU’s new migration regulations allow for more police raids in private homes and public spaces and more use of surveillance and racial profiling, said a letter to EU institutions in February from 88 nonprofit groups including the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. “We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while also supporting these practices in Europe,” said the platform’s director, Michele LeVoy. Olivia Sundberg Diez, EU migration advocate for Amnesty International, said Europe retains more protections for vulnerable migrants than the United States but shares much of the political momentum toward harsher policies. “There’s a level of institutions’ and courts’ independence and human rights compliance in Europe that you can’t disregard,” she said. “But the fundamental political impulse is the same, and I worry that the human consequences will be the same.”Zampano reported from Rome. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Jill Lawless in London, Paolo Santalucia in Rome, Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.Yemen’s Houthis claim responsibility for missile attacks on Israel as war in Middle East intensifies
Immigration Donald Trump European Union Ursula Von Der Leyen Giorgia Meloni General News Migration Eurocopa 2024 Politics Bernd Parusel Rachele Scarpa World News Olivia Sundberg Diez Michele Levoy Flor Didden World News